I've never climbed ice in Australia. I did head to Bogong and have a play in some steep snow gullies last winter though.
I made it to NZ for 2 weeks of alpine climbing in November last year, and had 5 weeks of ice climbing in Canada around March this year, so the gear gets a reasonable amount of use.

Blue Lake has about a 3 month season of good conditions usually from late June to early September. Sometimes the season can be longer. Victoria has a little bit shorter season and conditions are a lot tricker to predict. Generally once blue lake forms it stays formed - whilst Vic ice will appear and disappear weekly.

My gear get used a bit. I have done 2 seasons in the European Alps in there summer and also have done 2 big winter climbing trips in Italy.
I got all my gear in the UK when I lived there, it would be to expensive to buy it all here!
I have never climbed here but I am looking forward to giving it a crack if I can find a partner and besides NZ is close and cheap for summer Alpinism and winter climbing!

Just watch out for heavy snow build up and cornices in the Grey Buttress area (as the Westerly wind blasts over the top it does a big dump of snow into that area - I suppose that's why there used to be a glacier there). That avalanche the other year was not a one-off. Zac Zaharius has a photo of an avalanche in the same place and of a similar size which occurred some years ago.

On 20/07/2011 nmonteith wrote:>With all the snow about half the ice must be covered surely.

There's not *that* much snow...1.5m at Spencer's Creek is just a bit above average...Anyway last 24 hours have seen a fair amount of rain right up to high altitudes, warm moist temps. Not sure how that would affect the ice, but I imagine much the snow on steep rocky sections has been washed away, you can see a lot more exposed e.g. on the perisher cams.

On 20/07/2011 sbm wrote:>There's not *that* much snow...1.5m at Spencer's Creek is just a bit above>average...

If you've been out there, like i have the last two weekendss, you'll soon realise that there is a TRUCKLOAD of snow. The thing is that so much of it has been dumped in high winds that the lee slopes are bursting, and wind-facing and flat areas are quite bare. You can ski across all but the last 50m of the first creek down from guthega village. I've never done that before. You can also ski across the snowy river at the swing bridge - never done that before either. But as you're skiing down the W/SW facing hill between those two, there are shrubs sticking out everywhere! Spencers creek itself looks VERY bare, but the slopes to it's W/SW are thick with snow.
Trust me, there is A LOT of snow out there, you've just got to look for it in the right places.

I'm heading over to Blue Lake and surrounds in a few weeks, and as part of the trip planning I'm curious about phone coverage.
I'm with Telstra, where about should I expect to get signal in the area?
Summits of peaks (eg Tynham, Carruthers etc)? How about at Blue Lake itself, or in the Snowy River Valley (from Guthega maybe)?

With vodafone (so you should get better) I had no coverage at guthega but as soon as I gained any elevation on the other side of the valley I had pretty good coverage, didnt check as further than mt anderson or so. I've also had coverage on Etheridge. Blue lake may be a bit optimistic...

I didnt go as far as blue lake but I'd imagine there to be pretty good conditions there